Mike Vrabel gushes over A.J. Brown at the NFL Combine

On Tuesday, Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni met with the media at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis and offered his latest update on how things stand with star wide receiver A.J. Brown. To hear Sirianni tell the story, he can not make any guarantees that Brown will be on the roster this season.

If you are trying to read the tea leaves here, you got another piece to the puzzle on Wednesday.

Because that is when New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel took to the podium, and he was asked about his relationship with Brown. Vrabel was the head coach of the Tennessee Titans when the organization drafted the wide receiver him in the second round of the 2022 NFL Draft.

The current Patriots coach did not hold back when discussing his relationship with the receiver:

”The relationships with players, and specifically A.J., has meant a lot,” began Vrabel in Indianapolis, per Sports Illustrated’s Mike Kadlick from the Combine. “I’ve watched him grow, I’ve watched him mature. I’m proud of him. Proud of the father that he is, proud of the husband, and that has nothing to do with where he plays or where he played.

“Those are the things that are important. We reach out and text each other during the things that happen good to each other and sometimes things don’t go so well for the people that you’re close with, and you text those as well.

“It’s a two-way street of support and reminders of what got us to where we are here today.”

As we outlined yesterday, the Patriots are one of the teams that are a fit for Brown, and perhaps an ideal one, given Vrabel’s comments.

As for how Brown might feel about his former head coach, he offered some insight of his own earlier this month. During an appearance on the “Dudes on Dudes” podcast with Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman, Brown talked about his relationship with Vrabel.

And how he used to “hate” him.

“Vrabe is the type of coach that he’s going to call on you in the meetings,” Brown said. “He wants to make sure you’re staying engaged and he’s going to go over the keys to victory of the week. You better know them by the back of your hand. I used to write in my notebook because at the time, I really didn’t like Vrabes. I didn’t like him, and I admit that he knows that.

“So, I used to write, ‘I hate Vrabes, I hate Vrabes, I hate Vrabes.’ I was doing that to pretend like I was taking notes to look like I was engaged. But because he was so hard on me when I was a rookie and I really didn’t understand it. So, at the time I told Vrabes like, ‘Hey, like I’m humble already. You don’t got to humble me.’ But I really didn’t understand what he was trying to, you know, push me to be.”

However, Brown then outlined how Vrabel’s ability to hold everyone accountable made the receiver grow to respect the coach.

”Another little quick thing, he showed a clip and I ran like a bang-8 [route], and I scored and he praised me. So, I was kind of feeling good about myself, right? I’m a rookie and a couple of plays later, he showed me another play with the bang-8, and I get tackled,” described Brown. “He was like, ‘What’s the difference between the first play and the second play?’ And he was like, ‘You’re tired.’ He was like, ‘That’s not going to cut it.’ He like, ‘That same mentality that you showed on the first play, you should do that all the time. That’s who you are. Like this right here, that’s not going to cut it.’

“When I say he holds every single player accountable from top to bottom, I don’t care who it is, like that’s who he is. And it makes the team come together because nobody is bigger than the team. Nobody is bigger than the program, so you have to respect it.”

The Patriots have been linked with several wide receivers this offseason, from free agency to the draft.

But will Brown be their main target this offseason?

Signs do point to yes.